Digital images, such as those obtained from digital cameras or other digital imagers often contain undesirable motion between successive image frames. In handheld cameras, the motion can result from a user of the device moving while operating the camera. For example, the digital image may move because the user is walking while operating the camera or because the user's hand is shaking, or wobbling among other reasons.
Motion between successive digital frames can also occur due to vehicle motion. The motion can occur due to internal sources such as vibrations of the vehicle and/or external sources such as atmospheric effects (e.g., effects of wind or localized pressure changes on the vehicle). This can be undesirable for imaging applications that can use various digital image sensors including multi-spectral sensors, hyper-spectral sensors, including electro-optical television and infrared sensors, among others. Targeting applications that often use the image data to determine where to point various pointing devices such as laser designators, range finders, spot trackers, and illuminators, among other devices, can have difficulty maintaining their focus of interest due to such motion.
Many imaging and targeting applications use on board guidance apparatuses such as a global positioning system (GPS), inertial navigation system (INS), and/or other such apparatuses or systems, in order to collect information about a particular target for imaging. In such embodiments, imaging circuitry and/or computer executable instructions can be used to track a camera's position with respect to the location of a target and can adjust the camera accordingly.
Such guidance systems can assist in target acquisition and pointing by reducing the unwanted motion between digital frames due to various sources. However, obtaining the necessary position data can provide reduced accuracy since the data acquisition may not occur at a sufficiently real-time rate.